How Does Email Work ?

To send an email all that you need is an email server for the email client to connect too. To view the email the user will need to access to the internet. There are many software based email clients such as Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express; these required the user to be connected to the internet for a short period of time so the emails can be downloaded. There are also web based email clients such as Hotmail and Yahoo. These allow the user to view there emails in a web-browser and require constant internet connection.
The user creates an email that is either text or HTML based. The SMTP server (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) handles outgoing emails. To receive emails the computer uses either a POP3 (Post Office Protocol) or an IMAP (Internet Mail Access Protocol) server.
*see diagram

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